<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>it scared her. by Loasaur</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27837430">it scared her.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loasaur/pseuds/Loasaur'>Loasaur</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, season 6, wrecked</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:34:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>778</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27837430</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loasaur/pseuds/Loasaur</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>As Buffy cradles herself in a room decorated in ropes of garlic, she reflects on the demons she's attempting to keep at bay.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Spike/Buffy Summers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>it scared her.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It scared her.</p>
<p>That's why she sat in the middle of her bed, surrounded by ropes of garlic. Hoping to not only ward off one particular demon, but all <em>her</em> demons.</p>
<p>Her life felt like it was constantly jumping from one difficult situation to another, just a whole series of difficulties. A series of difficult events. From the supernatural to the natural. From diamond stealing demons and time loops, to bills and flooded basements. She didn't feel like there was an end in sight.</p>
<p>Although that's it, there was an end. She'd seen an end, she'd <em>experienced</em> an end. An end that doesn't seem to leave her rear view mirror now. It's always sitting there, like a truck following her on a highway with no turn offs. If she stopped, it would eventually catch up to her, she didn't know whether it would slow down to a stop behind her, or if it would come hurtling toward her at full speed. Every time she did stop, it was never for too long, afraid of a collision she didn’t think she’d be able to come back from this time. So the end stayed in her rear view mirror, always haunting her from a distance while she slugged through every day, making decision after decision, good or bad, she never knew.</p>
<p>Had she made a single good decision since her friends brought her back? She felt like she mostly floated through the first few days, still not quite in a state of existence. Every time she’d tried to take steps toward existing in the normal world; getting a loan, going back to school, getting a job, celebrating her friends’ future happiness, she’s either been met with a solid wall, or a seemingly endless pit of despair.</p>
<p>Sleeping with Spike, that had surely been a bad decision, right? At least, the way they went about it definitely was. But despite the fact that she had exclusively thrown hateful words toward him in the last 24 hours, he still came through for her when she needed him most. They may have argued the entire way there, but the second they'd heard Dawn's scream of distress, they'd managed to slip back into routine.</p>
<p>That scared her.</p>
<p>With no words, only body language, they were able to communicate everything necessary to handle the situation.</p>
<p>A knowing look. <em>"That scream was Dawn, lets go."</em></p>
<p>A questioning glance. <em>"Are you going to do anything about the Witch?"</em></p>
<p>An understanding nod. <em>"I'll deal with Willow, start walking Dawn to the hospital so she doesn't have to see this mess."</em></p>
<p>They could communicate so much instinctively, but whenever she thought about the two of them together for more than 2 seconds, everything fell apart. Spike fit into her slaying life perfectly fine, but they’d crossed a line into her personal life, and a soulless vampire she’d spent the better part of three and a half years hating and fighting against, just didn’t fit into what her personal life was supposed to look like.</p>
<p>He could sit on the fringes, she could ask him to play guard dog for her friends and family, protect her personal life from the forces of darkness, but he could never be allowed to come in. Which she supposed was her first mistake after coming back from the dead. She <em>did</em> let him in. She confided in him all the things she couldn’t say to her friends. She invited him in for a private viewing of some of her darkest thoughts and feelings.</p>
<p>She deserved how she felt after that night. That's truly what she thought. She was stuck in a cycle of feeling nothing, then feeling guilty for feeling nothing, then feeling angry that anyone expected her to feel anything positive at all. If she felt disgusting, degraded, and defiled, at least she felt something different. After causing her friends so much grief, pain, and guilt, she deserved any punishment that came her way.</p>
<p>If that came in the form of a truly terrible decision she'd made that would be life shattering if the act was acknowledged to exist anywhere outside of the moment it occurred, so be it. But she wouldn't let it go further than that. Couldn't. She couldn't bear her sister looking at her the way she'd looked at Willow tonight. She couldn't bear her friends talking about her screwing Spike the same way they talked about Willow and her magic. </p>
<p>So she sat in her garlic covered room, clutching a cross, knowing she couldn't ask anyone to help her uninvite Spike from her home, for fear of revealing too much. For fear of disappointing them further.</p>
<p>It scared her.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>